Today was a day off work. I'd cleverly double-booked on medical appointments, a visit to Griffin Hospital in Derby for the study I'm in and a routine visit to my rheumatologist. By the time I'd moved the latter appointment to the afternoon, it didn't make sense to go to work, so I didn't. At 8:45 AM, I grabbed my knitting and headed for Derby. Waiting in doctors' offices is so much less stressful when you have something to do. And I take perverse pleasure in finishing my row when I'm finally called in.

When I got to the lab at the hospital, on my way out the door, there was one person ahead of me. So I settled down with my sock-in-progress, the mate to this one:



The sock itself is as plain as plain can be. There are no fancy stitches at all. The entire beauty of the sock is the marled yarn. Like most sock yarns, it's 4 ply. Each ply of this one is a different reddish color: there is orange, magenta, crimson, and burgundy. The yarn in the skein looks like a ruddy barber pole. But, when knit, it produces a lovely marled fabric. So, yes, the sock looks awfully nice.But, honestly, the yarn does all the work.

After I'd been knitting a few minutes, one of the technicians called me into the lab. As I finished my row and stuffed the knitting into my bag, she asked what I was knitting. "A sock", I replied, girding myself for the inevitable "you can buy those at Walmart, you know". However, she asked whether it was a full sock, or just a bootie. I assured her that it was a sock, for me, and pulled the finished mate from the bag. She asked if she could look at it, so I handed it to her and she gushed. There's no other word for it, friends. She gushed. She brought it over to the desk clerk for her to admire as well. Then she asked if she could bring it to show her supervisor. And I could hear more gushing from the other room.

When she returned the sock and we went into the room where she was going to draw my blood, she commented on how patient I must be. I quickly set her straight. I knit because I'm impatient. Only the knitting lets me survive impatiently waiting for an appointment that I was on time for to finally get started. And, because I had two sets of appointments today, I'm almost done with this pair of socks. I'll finish during the hockey game tonight (after I eat dinner and fold some laundry; well maybe I'll skip the laundry).